Sonic Youth

by Howard Wyman • June 12, 2009

Sonic Youth
The Eternal
(Matador, 2009)

To the extent that any band can, Sonic Youth has earned a sort of carte blanche through their phenomenal longevity, their legacy of innovation, and undeniable career-spanning quality (in relative terms, that is, and only among fans of this genre, which the band themselves basically defined in the '80s and '90s; there will always be those for whom any semblance of noise, even when set to rhythm and melody, is the devil's non-music). For those that have somehow made it this far without being exposed to a single Sonic Youth album and wanted a sort of grab-bag introduction, The Eternal would be the best place to start without suffering the indignity of paying for last year's Starbucks/SY Grande (ingredients: 15 oz. canned Sonic Youth stretched full of hot air on top of one over-extracted shot of stale roast). The Eternal is their 16th (!) album, and it's a very comfortable album; no surprises, no missteps, and yet nothing that necessarily displays a groundbreaking band hard at the work of breaking ground. As touted in pre-release press, the songs here cruise through fine examples of nearly all their past stylistic phases, yet without really building upon them. Fortunately (side projects notwithstanding), no Sonic Youth is bad Sonic Youth, so even a collection of stylistic retreads is worth a little excitement.

The new album gets Dirty right off the bat with "Sacred Trickster", and even Dirty-er as it rumbles ahead with the noise-bluesy call-and-response rocker "Anti-Orgasm." Later, "Walkin Blue" brings SY's pop penchant to its sunniest streak yet, strollin' blithely with Lee Ranaldo towards the intersection of memory lane and Murray Street, where if you like the lead riff and vocal climax of "Blue", than you're already revisiting "Karen Revisited." "Thunderclap (For Bobby Pyn)" is on the more playful slant of the Sonic Youth spectrum, remembering and celebrating the Germs/LA punk scene while channeling the odd swagger of EVOL/"Bubble Gum" into the latter-day RatherRipped/"Sleepin' Around"-style, big rock heft, with just a dash of Ginsbergian trash-mystic elevation. The Eternal is an album made entirely of such old-and-older hybrids, omitting only the most challenging chapters of Sonic Youth lore (the cold and boring experimental noodling of NYC Ghosts and Flowers, the stark and extended dissonances of Bad Moon Rising, the scattered art-clamor of Confusion Is Sex) in favor of near-tensionless palatability. Perhaps it's to their credit that Sonic Youth make it all sound just too easy.

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